IEA: Oil Market Balancing -- August 11, 2016

Pet peeve: all those 30-second sound bites without a 15-second analysis. This month and next month the 30-second sound bite: Saudi Arabia is pumping at record levels. The 15-second analysis not reported:

• the actual increase in production is negligible
• Saudi's total increase in production (and probably more) will be consumed in Saudi Arabia for air conditioning (source: John Kemp, twitter); it happens every year this time; the heat map of the Mideast is currently staggering -- and, no, this has nothing to do with global warming
• almost all Saudi/Iraqi power comes from gas/crude oil/fuel oil/diesel (source: John Kemp, twitter)
• Saudi Arabia: 44% of electricity comes from crude oil 

Active rigs in North Dakota:

	8/11/2016	08/11/2015	08/11/2014	08/11/2013	08/11/2012
Active Rigs	33	70	194	184	199

RBN Energy: Marcellus / Utica takeaway capacity to the Midwest, Canada -- the series continues.

Solar: pivoting away from big US utility projects; looking more like the aluminum siding companies of the 70's.

BNSF / Buffett: Buffett's BNSF dividend is lowest since 2010 as railroad slumps.

Jobs. Jobless claims little changed for second straight week.

• fell by 1,000 to 266,000 from a revised 267,000 (original report: 269,000)
• filings have been below 300,000 for 75 straight weeks, the longest stretch since 1970
• 4-week average: 262,750, up slightly from revised 259,750 (the 4-week average was not provided by the Bloomberg story)

Oil. IEA sees balanced market. One report says that oil production has been running one million bopd below what will be needed, from July to September, 2016. Current data suggests otherwise,b ut that's what the IEA is saying. And if the IEA is saying it, it must be true. Maybe OPEC can call off their September meeting. The Financial Times tends to disagree, saying that supply will outpace demand by at least 100,000 bopd through 2017.

Free entertainment: American Airlines now makes all entertainment free for all. I think they mean the video entertainment.

Ackman watch. Valeant shares plummet; company under investigation. According to this article, Ackman bought Valeant in April, 2015, or thereabouts. On April 15, 2015, Valeant was selling for around $206. Today, Valeant is down almost 7%, trading under $26. I don't want CNBC but if he is still a "regular" talking head on the business shows, one must ask the question, "why?"

Chesapeake Energy to sell north Texas Barnett shale assets. The Oklahoma City-based company said Wednesday it has agreed to end its natural gas gathering agreement with Williams Partners, for which Chesapeake will pay $334 million in cash. Chesapeake has also renegotiated its agreement with Williams for the Mid-Continent area in exchange for $66 million.

Archaeology: site of Zeus sacrifices found?

Meltdown: the next president faces possible ObamaCare meltdown.

Paywalls. I haven't read the article yet, but the headline caught my attention -- newspapers rethink paywalls as digital efforts sputter. I've always wondered about the efficacy of paywalls. With few exceptions, I can always find any article behind any paywall of any of the major media outlets (NY Times, LA Times, etc). Some of this is due to the relationship between Alphabet/Google and the media outlets. But I digress. The point is this: most folks who subscribe to newspapers will probably subscribe to newspapers regardless of digital content, and folks who don't subscribe, won't change their minds because of paywalls. There's simply too much content. We subscribe to one daily newspaper -- the WSJ -- if we didn't subscribe to the WSJ we would get the local daily, The Dallas Morning News. I might read one or two Boston Globe articles every week which is not enough to get me to subscribe. But when I go to the Boston Globe I am blocked by a paywall -- and, of course, I don't see any of their ads. And I don't go to other BG articles that I might otherwise visit, and I dont' see those ads. By putting up paywalls, newspapers are blocking me from seeing their ads. I'll read the linked article later.

Macy's: to close 100 more stores.